


Nothing important happens in this scene

by acertaindefenseattorney



Category: Downton Abbey
Genre: Conversations, Gen, M/M, Snapshots, a dash of period appropriate sexism, mild mentions of child abuse in other fictional works
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-03
Updated: 2015-12-03
Packaged: 2018-05-04 18:23:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 904
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5344004
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/acertaindefenseattorney/pseuds/acertaindefenseattorney
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A snippet of conversation between nerds, one somewhat more nerd than the other. OR: I have no idea what this is! I hadn't slept for over 24 hours! Entirely unproofread and unedited and I'd like very much to go to sleep now, if you don't mind.</p><p>---</p><p>'Tell me about your life, would you? If just a little. I’m ever so bored.’</p><p>There’s a pause. Thomas sucking the life into his new cigarette, watching with practised disinterest as Jimmy shuffles, reshuffles, and deals out the pack.</p><p>‘I should warn you, it’s a sad story,’ he says, smirking. ‘A tale of some woe.’</p><p>‘Go on, then.’</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nothing important happens in this scene

It’s a lazy afternoon. Thomas smokes, deals the cards out again over the table. The family is away, visiting - the silver is polished, the table is set, the inventories are inventoried, one and all. Even Carson has taken leave of the house, for a stroll into the village, purpose undisclosed. Alfred, Ivy and Daisy, all three, are in the kitchen, demonstrating pastries. The rest involved in lazy afternoon activities barely worth mentioning. 

Jimmy feels soporific, in the haze of the smoke; feels bored, which makes him feel curious. So he lays down his hand and leans back, casting the net of his curiosity about. Finds only Thomas, really. Nothing else remotely of interest in the room but he - and nothing funny about it. It’s just that, well, between strange, kind, awful, singular Mr Barrow and the rest of them, how is his net to catch on anything else?  

He’s clearly lived _more_ of life than most of them.

… Well, except Bates; who manages, he thinks, to be the most _boring_ of all the interesting people he’s ever met.

Thomas sighs over a losing hand, stubbing his cigarette out in the ashtray, and immediately lighting another. 

Catches Jimmy’s eyes on him. Quirks an eyebrow. 

‘What?’

‘I was wondering about your life,’ says Jimmy. 

‘My life?’ Goodness,’ says Thomas, with a smirk. ‘I wouldn’t do that, Jimmy. _I_ don’t.’

 ‘Don’t you?’

‘I try to avoid it,’ he says, but without sadness - a sly grin, that’s all. ‘Deal us in. You’re better at it than I am.’

‘Alright. But tell me about your life, would you? If just a little. I’m ever so bored.’

There’s a pause. Thomas sucking the life into his new cigarette, watching with practised disinterest as Jimmy shuffles, reshuffles, and deals out the pack.

‘I should warn you, it’s a sad story,’ he says, smirking. ‘A tale of some woe.’

‘Go on, then.' 

A third cigarette is lit. It’s astonishing, the rate he can get through them - or the rate at which he can afford to buy them, anyway. If Jimmy drank quite so much as Thomas smokes, he’d be bankrupt by the week end, he thinks. A pack over the course of the day, in smoke breaks and over tea, and a pack again in the evening, over cards. Fourteen a week.  

He exhales a thick vine of smoke, taking up his cards.

‘My parents died when I was very young,’ he says.

‘Sorry.’ 

‘Quite alright - don’t interrupt.’

Jimmy chuckles, gives into temptation, as usual, reaches out to pilfer his own ritual smoke from the pack and lights up.

‘I was sent to live with my uncle - but he died, soon after, too, and I was left with my aunt and cousins, none of whom liked me very much. I was only allowed to stay because,’ he pauses, making a vague gesture with his smoking hand, a sort of twirl, ‘it was his dying wish, my uncle. That I should live with them.’

‘That were kind,’ Jimmy says.

Miss Baxter seems to have caught Thomas’s eye over the top of her magazine. He smiles at her, just a little - Jimmy thinks this is probably on account of their having grew up together. Solidarity, and all that. She must know the whole sorry story. 

‘He was very kind,’ echoes Thomas. ‘But he couldn’t protect me from beyond the grave, of course. And my aunt was very unkind.’

He sighs. ‘I was terribly unhappy in that house. One day, my cousin struck me, and I struck back - defending myself, you see. Well, my aunt was so angry she locked me in the same room as my uncle died in. _All_ night.’

Jimmy squints. 

‘That’s… terrible’ he says, around his own vine of smoke. ‘Wait a moment—’

Thomas speaks over him, a grin tugging at the corners of his lips. ‘Soon after I was sent to an _orphanage—_ a place even worse than my aunt’s house, where I made only one friend, who died soon after from consumption—’  

‘ _Jane Eyre_ ,’ Jimmy says. Baxter smiles into her magazine. ‘That’s Jane Eyre.’

And Thomas barks with laughter, laying his hand down in front of Jimmy, proud as anything - _interesting_ as ever.

‘You’re right, in fact,’ he says, ‘that is Jane Eyre. And I win.’ 

His shoulders are absolutely shaking with mirth, ever so pleased with himself, at his expense; and Jimmy considers being really annoyed. But Thomas doesn’t laugh very often, actually. And it’s nice to see, even when he’s being an ass.

‘That’s very rude, Mr Barrow,’ he murmurs, through his own smirk. ‘When I were showing an interest.’ 

Thomas chuckles once more, genuine smile stretched across his face. ’I told you,’ he says, ‘I try to avoid it.’

‘Would you not tell me a little, though? Just a scrap? And be serious, this time.’

He smirks at him over his hand, eyes twinkling. Unbearable. ‘I’ll try,’ he says, and begins again: 

‘I don’t remember much of my childhood. I’m told I was found, bare-foot, wandering the streets of Liverpool, where I was adopted by a kindly Yorkshire gentleman as his own son…’ 

‘Oh, for God’s sake,’ Jimmy laughs. ‘Wuthering _bloody_ Heights. Do you only read women’s books?’

Thomas grins back at him, hands held up either side of him in surrender. ‘What can I say, Jimmy? I’m a romantic at heart.’

‘Aren’t you just,’ he says, and lays down his hand before him.  ‘I win.'

 


End file.
